Lady_Sadako

In my view, they should never have included the introduction to Ernesto Hess.

When I deliberately set out to find him after finishing the Striga contacts, and (with the help of friends) did so and discovered that I'd unlocked a whole secret TF (and a cool one at that) it was massively rewarding. THAT was rewarded exploration. There were plenty of hints as to what to do.

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As I've said, stun grenade and web rarely seem to work for me,

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I've already invited you to come to Test and throw grenades at me to prove this.

Whenever's good for you.

Read it again, and I have to say this is the best backgrounder yet.

It's genuinely macabre, it rings true (Eastern European - perfect) and it makes the Skulls INTERESTING.

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I want Marrow to be in it though.

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Marrowmaul?

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Umm. How about we nerf Hurricane first then I'll worry about choosing powers after the nerf?

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The power we are talking about is one of the many that means Hurricane doesn't NEED to be nerfed. If you choose not to take it, that's your lookout.

And I'd still be interested in hearing how come stun grenades 'don't work for you'. We can take this to Test if you like. I'll stand there with Hurricane running, and you can throw stun grenades at me, and we'll record the result.

For the record, last time I was in Siren's I fought a Brute who was able to avoid my Hurricane and stun me so that it dropped, simply by dropping on me from above.

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It was someone sharing their experience with a pickup group. Random invites from an individual who had a "Defeat 10 Skulls" mission, would pop that mission up, invite someone, say "Go. Hunt. Kill Skuls." and sit there waiting for them to do it.

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Not exactly.

The original story was of a guy who joined a pickup group to find a Defeat 10 Skulls mission running, and said something along the lines of 'hi, what are we doing?' The only reply he got was 'kill skuls'.

Another team member was added, and got the same 'kill skuls' message. The team leader was seen to be off to one side of the map, motionless. The members began to defeat Skulls. The team leader did nothing at all. He continued to do nothing. The members decided to see what was going on.

The hero who uttered this immortal epithet, when tracked down, was found to be auto-running into a wall.

The 'Go. Hunt.' part was actually from a different taciturn genius, said to a team during a Defeat 10 Somethings mission. It was, apparently, his idea of atmospheric roleplaying - a sort of vampiric command to be issued with a dramatic sweep of the arm, one assumes. Somewhere along the way, these two phrases merged into one, and became the immortal 'Go. Hunt. Kill Skuls.'

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To translate: If you have a build you like and didn't just frivolously throw the respec away, screw you, because nothing will be done to fix it.

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Oh, pay attention for heaven's sake. Did you not see this, also from Positron:

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Done. All you need to do is choose the respec as the reward, and you can do Arbiter Leery whether you respeced or not. (Upcoming patch)

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How you can say 'meh, whine, nothing will be done' when something is done right in front of you in the very same thread is utterly beyond me.

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You might need to buff Giant Monsters then. There's not one in the game that requires more than one team to defeat.

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Will do.

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Okay, first off - Lusca. She definitely needs more than one team to defeat.

But the problem is that it's rarely worth it. Just like with all those yummy giant monsters in the Hive. The only time they get attacked is when people are bored, or when some twit pulls one to Hami Rock.

You upped AV rewards, and let me tell you, it WORKED. People are lining up to take on AVs now. So how about making Giant Monsters worth fighting?

Is it I7 yet?

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What about the "other" unlockable costume pieces...no one has mentioned those yet.

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Nice try.

Sadako crossed the floor to where Rakescar was leaning against a vending machine. His bulk had left a webwork of cracks in the glass.

Unexpectedly, the music made it easier. The bass pulse filled the horrible empty space inside her, gave her something to lean against. In the bathroom, pale and shaking, she had been close to nausea. Her own eyes lit the place more harshly than neon. Now, the voices that had screamed You don't know what you're doing were lulled. Speaking and moving came spontaneously, like a dance.

He didn't move, but she knew he was checking her out. Appraising. Setting a price tag, a risk level.

Excellent.

She softly rode the backwave of attention, gliding her mind over his surface thoughts. Under the crust, pride glowed like lava. He was good.

'Fishing around in my mind?' he said unhurriedly.

'Fly fishing,' Sadako answered. 'You know the difference? I'm just skimming, to see if anything bites. Trawling would be rude.'

There was a pause. Drunken vampires hiccuped. A young man burst into flame. A wolf and a serval argued with a seven-foot alien.

'You're oddly polite for a squishie.'

'And you're oddly approachable for a stone-cold killer.'

He stretched, tectonic. 'I find being approachable helps put the marks at ease.'

'So you are the bounty hunter.'

They conversed. He spoke of his disdain for heroes, always charging in to investigate oddities. She commented that subtlety and spandex did not go.

'What about black spandex?' called a voice from one side.

Slowly, softly, she worked on his mind. It was like trying to massage a rock with invisible fingers. Nothing was coming through but the heat of his ego. They danced around each other, talking of this and that. He told her he'd been a drummer in a rock band. The drums tended to break. She recommended the skins of flayed Rularuu watchers. for elasticity and strength.

He could snap her like a dry branch, and she knew it.

Then, a hot seam of frustration, briefly felt below the rough pumice of his defences. Anger - at who? She took it at a rush. Stone-armoured fighters were notoriously difficult to scan. Psionics went through them like a hot knife through, well, concrete. Any crack in the armour had to be stabbed through and damn the consequences.

gabblegabble money soon gabble little hidey-hole gabble gabble

oh, come ON...

FUTURE. Times two.

It came like a hot gem in a gush of mud. FUTURE? Definitely a who, not a what.

She politely excused herself, went to the bathroom (stepping lightly over a comatose raver on the way) and was sick. She got rid of all the crusted alien thoughts. Preenings. 'Marks'. Profit. Not her. Flush it all out.

Later, she was herself again. The iced mineral water gave her a clean, bright headache. There was a woman by the bar who she had long admired but never met. If anyone would know who these FUTURE people were, she would.

She summoned up her nerve.

'Miss Love... might I have a word in private?'

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Why do I get the feeling I am going to get the worst beatdown ever...

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Oh, I couldn't possibly say.

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Allow me a brief, smug 'we told you so' here. Thanks for taking another look. Knowing how other Devs have handled similar issues in the past, it's really good to know that someone is actually willing to give the avid testers around here some credit.

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Should we go give the Controllers their rain back?

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I've not read most of your responses in this thread yet (I've been busy dealing with the deluge of PM's I got today -- a new record!) but I'll get through them by the end of the day.

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Castle, you rock. Thanks for your continued attention and willingness to DO something.

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scrappers are teh suxxor becus they do not get any new sets and i dunno about u but i am SICK and TIRED of all their current sets. I PLAYED EM ALL and am now bored.

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The way I see it is:

They've come up with new electric sets. They are unsafe. They need a group of people to test them on. People who like to take silly risks. People who like to SMASH.

Once the tests are complete, the heroes will get them too...

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Dominators hate it too. They note that their DPS goes down when they use MB on account of it's horrific animation time for low payoff; advice there is to skip it.

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Exactly. Psy Defs cannot skip it, but Doms can, and they do.

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* Balance: Snowstorm's recharge debuff is more effective for Controllers than Defenders. ( It appears the defender version is 80% as slowing as the controller version, seems they were reversed. Dark_Pyroblast)

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Controllers AT modifier for Slows is higher than Defenders. I'll talk to geko to make certain this is by design.

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But Snow Storm is NOTHING BUT a Slow!

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* Balance: ThunderClap's disorient lasts the same duration for Controllers as it does for Defenders, and may crit.

[/ QUOTE ]This should not be the case. The Disorient value is the same for both ATs and the Controller has a 1.25 modifier, while the Defender has a 1.00 modifier. Controllers Disorient should last a bit longer by default.

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But Thunder Clap is NOTHING BUT a Disorient!

Are you honestly telling the Stormies that THE FUNCTIONAL ENTIRETY of two of their primary powers is simply WORSE than the Controller secondary equivalent?

It would be one thing if it was simply a status COMPONENT that was affected - in that case, I can see a case for Controllers being more status-y than Defenders - but when the Slow or the Stun is the ENTIRE POWER, then you have a seriously out of whack situation.

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Charged Bolts is a bit over twice the Activation time of Dark Blast. Mental Blast is ~25% longer Activation Time than Charged Bolts. All do the same base damage. Mental Blast, however, does Psionic damage, which is among the hardest to defend against in the game.

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That's cold comfort when your attacks resemble a dripping tap! Yes, the Psy damage may be relatively hard to resist in the early game, but that just doesn't balance out against the sheer grinding frustration of WUB WUB WUB WUB WUB PLOOT. If it did, people would slot and use Mental Blast. They don't.

Frankly, by the time we've got off a couple of MB attacks, the opponent could easily have been downed by swifter means, so the relative lack of resistance plays very little part.

Compare Mental Blast to Psychic Dart in CoV - the latter being a USEFUL power both for pulling and attrition damage. It recharges in a blink and feels good to use.

When STATESMAN HIMSELF says that the animation times of Psy are driving him insane, as he in fact did, then it's time to revamp them!

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Mental Blast also has a 25% longer Max Range compared to the other two sets.

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That really doesn't make any difference in practice.

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While few enemies are especially vunlerable to Mental attacks, comparatively few have defense against it, either.

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But those that do REALLY do. It's like the developers were so anxious to prevent Psy from being a magic bullet that they overcompensated. Eventually it feels like you end up attacking a tin elephant with a cheese knife.

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Nope. Temp powers/buffs.

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ooh - are these Empowerment Stations some of the affordable items for smaller SGs that you've mentioned in the past?

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City of Heroes will receive a cool graphics upgrade, new base items (Empowerment stations!)

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Yay! Empowerment stations! Woot!

*dance*

*frolic*

...

okay. what ARE empowerment stations?

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The game doesn't revolve around Heroes, luv.

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City of Heroes does. And people who only have CoH don't get very much with I7.

The last thing I want to do is join in the whining about an issue I'm very excited about. But there isn't really a 'CoX' as such - there's CoH and CoV, and the PvP zones where they overlap. CoH does still deserve to be seen as its own game. For some people, it's the only 'City of' game they have.

I'm sure they HAVE done a lot with CoH that just isn't in the press release. New mission art, that kind of thing.

What the heck is an 'empowerment station'?

I love the idea of SG banners! Maybe we can design them like with the costume designer and drape them on the walls and stuff!

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He is not currently unlockable.

There is no badge for time spent (or time doing ANYTHING) in Pocket D.

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That settles that. Thanks.

Regarding stuff currently on Test:

DJ Zero seems a lot like a badge-unlocked contact, and his chat message seems to be a hint to spend more time in Pocket D, but so far nobody's got anything despite spending upwards of five hours there. Is this a bug or are we just not doing the right thing?

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Natural heroes get a bonus with the Stolen SMG. Tech folks get bonuses with High Explosives. Blackwand gives bonuses to Magic types. Minor Mutation is more effective for Mutants. The Psionic Activator is more effective if you are a Science origin.

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Ooooohhh. MORE origin relevance, and yet not done in a way that leaves any origin feeling hard done by...

Is this a hint of things to come?

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Engel - Rammstein

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Great. Can't stop whistling it now.